roject Nomads is a hybrid game from CDV that is currently out for the PC and will shortly be available on the Xbox. It is set on a world that war has torn to floating island-sized pieces that drift about in the atmosphere. The survivors are divided into three camps: the apparently extinct master builders, the warlike sentinels and the struggling-to-get-by nomads. Players take the role of one of three nomads whose two companions are captured by the sentinels in the opening cinematic. The player's mission is to rescue his two friends and incidentally put an end to the strife that is tearing apart what remains of the planet.
With the help of a not-so-dead master builder, the character sets out to accomplish his goals by slowly transforming the base island into a deadly battleship/aircraft carrier. Most levels contain master builder artifacts that the character can pick up and carry in his artifact belt. Back on their own island, the characters can use the artifacts to create buildings such as gun turrets, aircraft hangars (which create fighter planes and bombers), navigation towers and power generators. Depending on the artifact, the buildings are of levels 1 to 3. They can be permanent or the character can tear them down and rebuild them as often as needed.
When the character isn't piloting the island from level to level or customizing it for each new mission, he is traveling about or over other islands on foot or by jet pack or by plane. Planes aren't available until the character finds a hanger artifact, but the jet pack is part of the character's original equipment. It can always give the character jet-assisted leaps, but powerups found on the islands allow it to propel the character about in real flight.
Uncontrollable acceleration
Designers generally program the controls of a game differently depending on whether it is a PC game or a console one. The gameplay in PN is controlled like a console title. What that means is that most tasks, instead of being assigned their own key to be accessed directly, are accessed inside another task. For instance, when on foot, the character can fight with a variety of offensive spells. Instead of each spell type being assigned to a number key, players first activate the character's artifact belt, then cycle through the available spells, clicking the same action key to select the one
they want, then using a different action key to actually fire it. Depending on the player's dexterity, this is a slight annoyance or real handicap.
One place in particular where the scarcity of controls really hurts the game is in the lack of a throttle control. The base island and the jet pack all have only two speeds: off and full throttle. The fighter planes do not even have an off setting; they simply orbit until the player needs them again. This, again, creates a dexterity issue. If the player can deal with the speed at which all the vehicles are flying, then it doesn't matter that they can't slow down, but even the fastest-fingered players will occasionally find themselves in situations where they want to slow down and take in the
terrain and targets. No such lollygagging is allowed.
Control and speed issues to the side, what PN has going for it is a really cool world. It is downright fun to pilot a tanked-up island through a space of floating mountains and hanging plains, and it is even more fun to buzz through those mountains or over those plains in your own airplane or (better yet) with a jet pack strapped on. The levels are challenging without being impossible, and effects for the explosions and fire are dazzling.
The control I missed the most in this game, even more than a throttle, was one that would let me start and stop the movement of the island while I was operating one of the gun turrets. Having to switch out of the turret and then re-enter the navigation tower every time I wanted stop or start the island made me glad there are very few levels where it is necessary.
— Eric
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